Not Another Homeschool Blog

I have heard homeschooling described as a lazy mom's education. She can sleep late. She doesn't have to deal with carpool. She just tosses a stack of books in the kids general direction. HA! I have 3 calendars (for 2 kids) taped to the side of a bookshelf. One calendar each is for work done at home.  The third calendar is for their electives day. As I sit here gazing at it, and think back... wayyyy to the 1980's when I finished high school, I know we didn't do half this stuff. I think we had 6 classes a day from what I remember. I also remember that I didn't have time for many electives. I took art for 4 years and a couple of law classes. Back when foreign language was a choice, I did not take any, as I wasn't willing to sacrifice art to learn Spanish. Now my daughter is working on two foreign languages this year, PLUS is in a play, has drama club, art, and chorus. This is on top of her usual academics. This is because her time is well utilize...

Follow up from previous conversation on thinking like a homeschoolers. FREE HOME EDUCATION WEBSITE MY BUSINESS WEBSITE WalletPop Contributor Brighthub Contributor

If there are any problems in our homeschool, they are caused by me. I have to face the fact that I am a bit scattered and inconsistent in my own habits, so how can I expect better from the kids. Seeing as this is my last two years with my near-grown kiddies, I have to do better if I expect them to go into adulthood with good living habits. So, I have set myself an hourly schedule, starting with me getting up an hour before the kids to exercise and for quiet time.  This is followed by making breakfast, no matter how simple, and getting in some daily exercise. Starting this morning, I already lost an hour so I didn't exercise or get quiet time.  Even so I feel very refreshed from having a nice breakfast and getting showered and prettied up early.  Now I have a full hour to dedicate to blogging before I have to start writing articles (to earn the Benjamins). My other scheduled items for the day are two 3-hour blocks for working and time to make dinner and...

When homeschoolers are older like mine, the role of the homeschooling mom drastically changes. Some of my roles are: Debate partner: Because EVERYTHING I say turns into a long drawn out conversation. Guidance Counselor: As we prepare for college entry. Academic coach: As I help them navigate the requirements of different teachers to make it to the finish line of a good grade. Taxi Driver: As they have to be everywhere, and at the same time Nervous passenger: As they begin to drive me places. Maid: As they are far too busy to clean up after themselves. Life coach: As I try to impart to them years of knowledge and experience. There is so much more, but these are the things on my mind this evening. FREE HOME EDUCATION WEBSITE MY BUSINESS WEBSITE WalletPop Contributor Brighthub Contributor

I spent the summer watching my niece and almost-son prepare to go to college.  The last of the two, my niece leaves in the morning.  As I have a child starting college in the fall, and another the next year, I am very interested in the process of gearing up to go to college.  It just looks plain expensive.   Being the consummate planner, I have purchased two trunks and have began to put things aside for my son.  This way, I can purchase items he will need on clearance, and pay less than what I am watching others pay.  I am excited about the prospect of having an excuse to budget shop for the next two year.   The subject of textbooks is  a bit scary to me though.  First, the amount of time you have to shop for college books is severely limited. You don't get your textbook list until a week or two before school at most.  Second, there are no clearance sales to help you stockpile textbooks. My friend did have so...

It's show and tell time.  Here are my favorite books for homeschooling.  You could actually have these books and need little else (through grade 6). FREE HOME EDUCATION WEBSITE MY BUSINESS WEBSITE WalletPop Contributor Brighthub Contributor

We may have a problem with the online classes.  Already.  As homeschoolers my kids have spent 1 hour a day 4 or 5 days per week on most classes.  They have spent 90 minutes a day without fail on math and foreign language.  So that is no more than 4 to 7.5 hours per class weekly.  This is true whether they are studying someone at home, or in a local class. The online classes they are taking through the county is recommending 12-20 hours a week per online class.  (I am pretty sure that's what they said during the orientation chat) That's just crazy.  Weekly, this would be almost 2 1/2 hours a day to 4 hours a day per class.  Multiply that by 5 classes (which my kids are not taking) and that could take 12 1/2 to 20 hours a day.  So much for having a life or sleeping. I think they are seriously over stating the time it takes to study the material and pass the tests. I am hoping that this is a loose recommendation, and not a requirement. ...

My son can finally access his online classes.  It looks like his teachers are a TON more organized than my daughters teacher.  My sons Physics and Financial Math teachers dropped his assignments into a calendar, so it is clear what has to be done what day.  If he needs to get ahead, due to another obligation, he can still do that, but it is clear how they should pace themselves. My daughter's Spanish teacher just inserted weekly dates into her syllabus.  Pacing will need to be done ourselves.  Also it is not very easy to determine what she should do.  We had to compare her syllabus to what was online and interpret what needed to be done.  I think we will get the hang of it though. I feel like being organized and meeting deadlines will be the key to doing well in these classes.  I gave the kids a one subject composition notebook for each class.  We glued the syllabuses in the first few pages, so they can refer back to them and check off wh...

I am finding that in my area, several families are being hit up for money because their students needed to take extra classes to be able to graduate. I thought it was an isolated incident until I started asking the question "is your senior ready to graduate?". I keep hearing no. The good news, is that there are ways to make sure your child graduates on time. There are local online and private schools from which the public school MUST accept credit. If you find yourself in this position, check out http://highschool.unl.edu/ and http://ce.byu.edu/is/site/courses/highschool.cfm If you can't get anywhere with the school's guidance counselors, then go to the board of education. FREE HOME EDUCATION WEBSITE MY BUSINESS WEBSITE WalletPop Contributor Brighthub Contributor

As I have mentioned a gazillion times recently, my son is taking classes for his Senior year with Georgia Virtual School. He has done orientation several times and there was some kind of glitch with the software. According to the online support team, his orientation shows he finished it this morning. (Though it was his fourth or fifth time doing it.) He can access his classes tomorrow, a day late. My problem is that it seemed that they didn't want to acknowledge that there was a software problem. It had to be due to him making a mistake. Meanwhile this kid really knows his way around a computer. Here's hoping he can get into his classes tomorrow as assignments are due every Friday night at midnight. FREE HOME EDUCATION WEBSITE MY BUSINESS WEBSITE WalletPop Contributor Brighthub Contributor

I am now allowed monitization with YouTube so there will be a lot more videos. I just realized that I used to preach about using public school resources for homeschooling, but we are now using them. Never say never huh? I do feel comfortable with using individual classes with Georgia Virtual School because it is not an online school, but online classes, so that parent still controls the students schedule and is responsible as their "principal". FREE HOME EDUCATION WEBSITE MY BUSINESS WEBSITE WalletPop Contributor Brighthub Contributor

Let's just say I was none too happy when I saw the following email in my inbox... here's an excert: "Racist Homeschoolers Unite"? Don't answer a fool according to his folly… that's our position and we'll continue to ignore the asinine assertions of racism being at the root of those who are displeased with the policies of the current administration. In the meantime, we're ready to start examining some of the GOP presidential candidates who may be able to turn the tide of the current political mess. The next president will be in a position to mold and shape the future America our children will inherit. ... I am cringing at the thought of the next election. The last one was traumatic enough for me. You see, I have always been a person whose race did not seem to matter. Even the most racist of people seemed to like me and would tell me so. You know the old back-handed compliment "You're not like those other black people." Yes, that...

As I have mentioned before the children erm, young adults are taking online classes with the public school teacher.  The Senior is taking 2 classes and the Junior is taking 1. We received emails from all teachers today introducing themselves and letting us know when the weekly "chat" session would be.  Well, the session for my daughters Spanish  class is the same time as her drama club meetings. I emailed to the teacher to speak to him about the conflict.  However, as the teacher left his phone number I decided to try and call him.  He answered and was very nice.  He said just listen to the recordings of the weekly chats and and call him if she has any problems. So far I am very happy with the level of communication.  That is usually my biggest pet peeve, so... so far-so good. FREE HOME EDUCATION WEBSITE MY BUSINESS WEBSITE  ' WalletPop Contributor Brighthub Contributor